First Cast For StudioCanal’s ‘Dinosaur Project’

Back in May StudioCanal has announced The Dinosaur Project which has already commenced principal photography in South Africa. Yet to settle on a title, the IMDB is listing Peter Brooke (Red Lights, The Dark Knight) cast as “Charlie Rutherford”, Natasha Loring as “Dr. Liz Draper” and Matt Kane.

In November 2010, TV programmakers Sid Bennett and Tom Pridham and producer Nick Hill walked into the London office of StudioCanal with an idea for a movie “about a father-and-son documentary team who discover dinosaurs in the African jungle.”

They had an outline, a showreel, a budget, a plan for the vfx and a clear timetable to progress rapidly into production — but no script. StudioCanal took the bait. Budget is under $16 million.

“It was a very gettable pitch — what would happen if you went into the jungle and found dinosaurs?” said Jenny Borgars, head of production at StudioCanal’s U.K. arm Optimum Releasing.